Effective remedies for asylum-seekers at EU external borders: New pact on migration and asylum

Summary:

The European Union's objectives in the field of external border protection are to safeguard freedom of movement within the Schengen area (an area without internal borders) and to ensure efficient monitoring of people who cross the Union's external borders. To strengthen its external borders and prevent irregular migrants from reaching its territory, the European Union (EU) has turned its focus to extending its partnerships with third countries and to reinforcing its border agencies, providing them with stronger means and powers. With the pact on migration and asylum adopted in 2024, the EU is also introducing a new set of border procedures as a key 'migration management tool' in the event that a large number of asylum applicants arrive from third countries.

At European and EU level, a range of human rights standards have been developed that regulate the powers of individual states when allowing or refusing entry to irregular immigrants and asylum seekers and when implementing their expulsion to countries from which they have come or through which they have passed on their way. When conducting border management and immigration control, states need to uphold legal requirements that protect the human rights of non-nationals who are subjected to border checks. This includes providing effective remedies for human rights violations at borders, such as the possibility to lodge an appeal against a decision before a competent, independent and impartial national authority. The right to an effective remedy is particularly important in order to uphold the principle of non-refoulement, which, according to experts, could in practice be undermined during procedures at the EU's external borders. This is an update of a briefing first published in October 2021.

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